system of Christianity. Nothing more than an explicit profession of faith in Christ appears to have been necessary to admission to the church. Acts 8: 37; 16: 31–34.

The elaborate confessions of faith made use of by most denominations in modern times are a deviation from Christian and apostolic usage. They are meant to be improvements of the institutions of Christ, but they are really corruptions of them. Christ made no such standards, and required no subscriptions to them. Such standards would have materially impeded the progress of religion in the apostolic age, and they have always been injurious.

Had an elaborate and extended confession of Christian faith been necessary, such an instrument ought to have been given to the primitive church by its divine founder. As we may not add to the canon of God's inspired word, or take from it, and be blameless; so we may not add to the qualifications and requisitions for membership in his church. Even the weak in faith is to be received as far as may be. -— Rom. 14: 1.

The omission of any extended confession of faith, to receive the assent of candidates for admission to the church, and the absence of an allusion to any, however remote, in the New Testament, ought forever to exclude them from the church, unless they are made of that general character which corresponds to the professions made by the first Christians with the sanction of Christ.

The effect of extended confessions of faith has been to create and perpetuate unnecessary divisions in the church of God, and to make allowable diversities of opinion, and such errors and imperfections of knowledge as are compatible with sincere piety and acceptable Christian obedience, a bar to church membership and communion.

This is wrong. The doors of the church ought to be open to all sincere Christians, however imperfect in knowledge. Christian faith is but another name for Christian knowledge; for knowledge of things made known to us by the testimony of the

word of God. Some believe more, and some less; as some know more, and some know less, in other departments of inquiry. That amount of faith in divine things that was judged sufficient to entitle its subjects to membership and communion in the church by Christ and the apostles, ought to be sufficient now, and ought always to remain so. This will not hinder that knowledge should be progressive, and the membership in all churches should learn as much as possible.

The church of Christ had no connection with the state. It was an independent spiritual community, an institution complete in itself, without any state alliance. The civil magistrate did not appoint its ministers, convene its courts; ratify its articles of faith, whatever they may have been; did not form courts of appeal and review from the decisions of the church courts; did not collect the dues of presbyters and other church ministers, and had no connection with church affairs. As a member, he took his place with other members, and possessed no superiority over them.

The church was a religious state, a society independent of the state, and organized for religious purposes alone. It made its own laws, elected its own officers, and administered its own gov

ernment.

It held its own courts for the trial of offences, and punished offenders with rebukes, suspensions and excommunications. It had no prisons, no dungeons, no chains, no instruments of torture and of death. It inflicted no corporal punishments. It retained the penitent offender who forsook his sins, and excommunicated the incorrigible.

Its principles and maxims were opposed to those of the principal civil governments under which it prevailed. It prohibited many things which they allowed, and commanded some things which they prohibited. This led to frequent and bloody persecutions; but persecution could not change its principles, or relax its discipline..

The church did not, ordinarily, engage in any controversy

with the state authorities under which it lived. But it everywhere carried with it the law of God as the supreme rule of moral action, and demanded of its members uncompromising obedience to it. When the civil magistrate interfered to enforce a law of the state against the law of God, the reply of the church was given in the sublime and unanswerable declaration of Peter and the other apostles, "We ought to obey God rather than man," -Acts 5: 29; and, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken to you more than unto God, judge ye,” -4: 19.

CHAPTER IV.

PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH EXTENSION.

We have no account of city and local churches till after the conclusion of our Lord's public ministry. Then all the churches were city and local churches, and they all appear as independent bodies. The extension of the church was not by branches growing out of a common stock, and retaining their connection with it, like an enormous tree, that should have its roots at Jerusalem, and send its stock and branches to the ends of the earth, but by independent trees, each having separate roots, stems and branches, of its own, according to the analogy of the natural world. These trees might be raised, as in the natural world, by cuttings, or by the good seed of the Gospel. A branch might be cut off from a preëxisting church to form a new church, or a new church might be organized from new converts to the truth, without a solitary member from any previous church.

Most

Neither is there any prescribed method of effecting the organization of churches, that must be adhered to in all cases. of the organizations described in the New Testament were made

by regularly-ordained ministers. It does not appear, however, that Paul ever had ordination from those that were ministers before him, except at his consecration to the work of a foreign missionary, after he had been some years in the ministry. Acts 13: 2, 3; Gal. 1: 15--24. "But when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem, to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days."

The church of Rome seems to have been founded by laymen. Bunsen, Michaelis, Rambach, Rosenmuller and others, suppose that the church at Rome was founded by some of the Roman converts under Peter's preaching on the day of the great pentecostal blessing. Among his hearers were strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes. Acts 2: 10.

The primitive churches were not close corporations, founded by charters and licenses from other churches; but general independent Christian societies, capable of being formed wherever a number of Christians were disposed to unite together for that purpose. They were voluntary societies, with no other written constitutions than the sacred Scriptures, and with no restrictions in respect to rights of conscience. They were generally organized by Christian ministers; but such agency was by no means necessary for this purpose. The essential things, in regard to such organizations, were, the principles on which they were organized. These were principles of perfect holiness, of perfect love to God, and equal love to all men; or, of liberty, justice and equality.

With no trace of a provincial, national, or universal organization, and no general government, it is natural to inquire what provision was made by the divine Founder of the church for preserving its essential unity and harmony. Was there any

adequate provision made for this purpose? and, if so, what was it?

On a superficial view, no provision whatever appears to have been made for the preservation of a general union and agreement of churches; but the general liberty and independence of churches, however small, seems to leave them exposed to endless diversities and divisions. They may depart from the faith; they may introduce new usages, and abandon old ones; they may apostatize from the most essential principles of Christianity, and adopt principles of impiety and superstition; and there is no human authority to restrain them. Is this right and expedient?

The post-apostolic fathers thought such an arrangement imperfect, and undertook to improve it. In attempting to make improvement, they first modified the primitive constitution of the church by gradually introducing diocesan and provincial episcopacy; and then matured and improved the episcopacy into the papacy in the West, and the patriarchates in the East. But, so far from saving the church from corruption by these improvements, they caused it to be overwhelmed. The patriarchates did not escape in the East; the papacy did not escape. Could it have been worse if the organization of Christ and, the apostles had been left as they left it? I think not.

But is it a fact that no adequate provision was made, by the system of church polity established by Christ, for the perpetual preservation of the church, and for preserving an essential union and agreement among all its branches? I think not. Such neglect would have been a great oversight, unworthy of the divine Founder of Christianity.

The liberty and independence of congregational churches is the greatest and most effectual barrier possible against corruption both in doctrine and discipline, and affords the only possible condition of continual improvement and renovation.

This organization is based on the supposition that religion is a science, and can be safely left to its evidences; and that in